


Missing - Please Return

by endrega_Turtlesse



Series: Amnesiac Bucky Barnes 'Verse [6]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: ALL THE FLUFF, Adorable Alpine, Adorable Tony Stark, Amnesiac Bucky Barnes, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Bucky Barnes Needs His Cat Back, Ceiling Vent Alpine, Ceiling Vent Clint Barton, Fluff, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes, Tony Stark Needs Sleep, Tony Stark plays the piano, and more - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22726420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endrega_Turtlesse/pseuds/endrega_Turtlesse
Summary: What Tony needs is sleep.Oddly enough, what Tony wants is sleep.What Tony doesn't want but probably needs anyway is to sign those damned papers.What Tony neither wants nor needs is Bucky calling him in a panic. Yet, that is what he gets.
Relationships: Alpine the Cat & James "Bucky" Barnes, Alpine the Cat & Tony Stark, James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark
Series: Amnesiac Bucky Barnes 'Verse [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1617277
Comments: 7
Kudos: 187
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	Missing - Please Return

**Author's Note:**

> Shameless fluff.
> 
> Name of piece: Missing - Please Return  
> Name of participant: endrega23  
> Card number: 3097  
> Square number and prompt: A2 - Tony playing piano  
> Rating: General Audiences  
> Pairing: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Alpine the Cat & James "Bucky" Barnes, Alpine the Cat & Tony Stark  
> Warnings: no archive warnings apply  
> Summary: What Tony needs is sleep. Oddly enough, what Tony wants is sleep.  
> What Tony doesn't want but probably needs anyway is to sign those damned papers.  
> What Tony neither wants nor needs is Bucky calling him in a panic. Yet, that is what he gets.

Tony was so goddamn tired. His trip in Japan had taken forever (not really, but everything seems longer when you can’t sleep), then the flight home, and Pepper was still trying to hand him papers.

“Tony, just sign these and you can go home.” Pepper was looking at him with her ‘no jokes’ expression, holding out the stack of papers. Tony stuck his hands behind him so she couldn’t force him to take them.

“Why can’t I go home and sign them later? It seems like a much better plan.”

“Because you’ll have marathon sex with your boyfriend and won’t emerge for a week. During which, I will be forced to think of the reason of your absence.”

Tony pouted. It was a very manly pout, mind you. But he was totally justified doing it.

Pepper threw her hands up. “You could have already signed them by now! Just stop arguing and do it, I promise it will be better for everyone included!”

Tony opened his mouth (to argue), Pepper’s brows tightened (because she knew it was to argue), and Tony’s phone rang.

“Ha!” Tony exclaimed, perking up. “Have to take this, Pep, it’s probably an emergency!”

Pepper shook her head and turned away. Tony fished the phone out of his pocket, holding it to his ear and pressed accept without looking at the display. Whoever it was would get him out of this conversation and then he could just hang up on them. No biggie. And people said he never had a plan.

“Hello, Tony Stark speaking, state your emergency” he said in his best imitation of those customer service robots.

“Tony” Bucky’s voice said, and Tony immediately straightened up, because that sounded horrible.

“Buck, speak to me, what’s wrong, are you okay? Tell me you’re okay, please” he said frantically, glancing over at Pepper who had also straightened out the moment she heard him.

“Tony” Bucky said again, and this time it sounded dangerously like a sob. Oh, no, no, don’t do this.

“Bucky, sweetheart, talk to me, what’s wrong?”

“Alpine” Bucky choked out, and what?

“Alpi-” Tony frowned, before he realized. Oh. The cat.

“He disappeared, Tony! I’ve been looking around for him for an hour now, and even JARVIS can’t find him, and what if he got out on the roof, or the street, and something happened to him, and-” Bucky was getting more and more frantic, so this was the time to interrupt.

“Bucky, hey, hey, stop, I’m sure he’s fine, okay? So take a deep breath with me, yeah, like that. Hold it for one, two, three; and out. Good. In, two, three, four; hold, two, three; out, two three, four, five. Good, again.”

Slowly, Bucky’s breathing steadied, and Tony could feel himself start to relax.

“That’s better, sweetheart, you’re doing so well for me. Now, have you thought to ask JARVIS?”

Bucky took a couple of audibly deep breaths. “Yeah. Yeah, I did, but he can’t find him either.”

“Okay” Tony said, thinking furiously. Fuck it, let’s buy time. “Let me think for a moment, okay? You just keep breathing for me. I promise we’ll sort this out.”

“Yeah, okay” Bucky said, and Tony covered the speaker of the phone.

“What happened?” Pepper asked, and Tony will never admit it, but he twitched. Because he’d forgotten that Pepper was there.

“Uhm, Alpine apparently disappeared, and even JARVIS can’t find him. Which is no biggie, lots of areas of the Tower are on privacy setting, but Bucky’s freaking out, so, obviously, problem.” Tony ran a hand through his hair, the other still covering the phone.

Pepper squinted at him. “Who’s Alpine?”

“The cat, Pepper, focus here” Tony waived a hand at her. “The point is how to find him.”

“Tony…”

“No, Pepper, you don’t understand! Bucky is upse-”

“Yes, Tony, I don’t understand. You hate cats. Why is your boyfriend upset over a cat?”

Tony stopped. He stared at her. And then he started laughing hysterically.

“Tony!” Pepper rushed to him and took the phone from his hands. She sat it on his table to save it, and he would be thankful in a minute, but now crumbled to the floor, shaking with laughter. It wasn’t even funny, he didn’t know what was wrong with him, but he barely slept for a week, hadn’t at all for twenty-six hours, his boyfriend just gave him a heart attack, and he hated cats. Or more like, cats in his space. Or, animals, really. But he loved Bucky, and that was the gist of it, wasn’t it?

“Oh, god, I love Bucky!” he straightened, his eyes going wide. How could he miss it?

“Tony, of course you love him. You’ve loved him for the last year and a half, at least.”

“No, no, Pep, you don’t understand” Tony waived around. “I love him! Like, love him, love him! Shit, I gotta tell him, Pep, how am I gonna tell him?! You know how bad I am with big feelings!”

“Hey, hey, Tony,” Pepper grouched down in front of him. “One apocalypse at a time, okay?”

He stared at her with wide eyes.

“Okay?” she repeated, grabbing hold of his chin. “I need you in the moment now, because your boyfriend is on the line, panicking, and I can only handle one of you panicking at a time. So you’re gonna shelve _your_ panicking for a later date and we’ll sort out this cat. Okay?”

Tony blew out a deep breath. “Okay” he nodded.

Pepper released him, and they scrambled to their feet (well, he scrambled, Pepper rose gracefully).

“So, you got a cat.”

“No, Bucky got a cat” Tony corrected her. “I am just not throwing him out because I actually love my boyfriend.” Okay, that was still a weird thought.

“Regardless, you now have a cat.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Who has disappeared.”

“I’d like to say fortunately, but I feel like that wouldn’t be a very nice thing to say.”

“Wow, you’re learning!” Pepper smirked at him, and he scowled back. “Nice to see my work is not for nothing.”

“Can we focus here, please?”

“Yes, of course” Pepper dialed back her smirk, but a small smile remained. Tony found he didn’t mind it at all. “I believe your best chance would be to comb the Tower and lure him out.”

“Pepper, you do know how big the Tower is?”

“Well, you really only have to go through the areas JARVIS can’t see. He would know if someone left the building, right?”

“Yes.”

“So the cat, what was his name?”

“Alpine.”

“So Alpine is still in the building.”

“Yees?… Yes!”

Tony raced to the phone.

\--------------

They had been searching the whole afternoon. Tony was edging towards thirty hours without sleep, and he knew he was manic at this point, he knew it, but he couldn’t stop and go to sleep because his boyfriend was unhappy. Normally Bucky would have noticed by now and persuaded him to go to sleep (sometimes Tony was tempted to push it just for that), but now Bucky was focused on the stupid cat. Tony hadn’t even met him, and he already resented him.

He forced back a yawn. He couldn’t stop. He could not.

He was on sublevel two, where most combat-related supplies were stored. Everyone had taken a sublevel. There was no real way the cat could have gotten down here, but they had ruled out most possible locations pretty quickly, and JARVIS’s monitoring in storage areas was scarcer since normally only robots could enter. No cameras, just motion-sensors at key points. It would be dumb luck if Alpine was here and just hadn’t triggered any of them, but it was possible.

Tony had already finished half of his level, and not a peek of Alpine. He was starting to get worried, actually. Not that there was any way the cat could have left without JARVIS noticing, all of the exterior was under constant and rigorous monitoring, but there were plenty of dangerous things within, too. Tony did not want to see what Bucky would look like if they found a shredded cat.

 _“Hey, guys”_ Clint’s voice came through the comms. _“Alpine got into the vents.”_

Oh, that would explain his disappearance.

 _“Have you found him?”_ Bucky audibly perked up.

_“Sorry, man, just his dinner. Processed.”_

Tony winced. That would contaminate the airflow through the whole Tower. He hoped at least that it wasn’t near the circuit that supplied the residential areas. He did not wish to sleep in the stench of cat shit.

 _“Alright, people, then we know he could be anywhere”_ Steve said, Cap voice on full force. _“Don’t rule out areas you’ve checked, either. He could have moved back after you locked the door.”_

Ugh. That was just what Tony needed. An endless game of hide-and-seek.

Just at that moment, caught something from the corner of his eye.

“JARVIS, did you catch that?”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Oh, well. Time to play hide-and-seek, then.

Tony moved towards the flash of something. It had disappeared around a corner, and he raced to it. Turned, looked around, and nothing. Dammit.

Oh, wait. Just above and in front of Tony’s head, directly above a door, there was a vent cover. Gotcha. Tony moved closer, and… Yeah. The door had scratch marks.

 _“Cat’s on sublevel two, in the vents”_ he spoke softly, straining his ears to hear any noise.

A collective sigh came through the comms.

 _“Moving there now, I’m two floors up”_ Clint said.

 _“I’ll be there in a moment, sweetheart.”_ Bucky’s voice was so relieved, Tony couldn’t even feel annoyed at the cat.

Other affirmative answers came through the comms, but Tony ignored them. Instead, he moved silently a couple of feet down the corridor, listening for anything above his head. For a while, it was silent, but then… Aha! Soft scratching sounds from the vent cover. They moved down towards him, and then to the left, into a room. A soft thud, from inside. Tony paced to the door and unlocked it, as quietly as possible.

 _“In room 445”_ he whispered, and silently opened the door. Inside, the room was lined with shelves, all filled with boxes, with a table in the middle for packing, currently filled with stray pieces of ammunition. And on the table, the tiniest little white furball Tony had ever seen.

Alpine blinked at him, and Tony melted. It, just, his heart melted straight through his reconstructed sternum. The furball looked away and reached out with a paw to prod at a bullet, and Tony could feel his lips stretch into a smile, because, this was a sight to remember. Just the cutest. Then, Alpine leaned down to sniff at the bullet. Just. The. Cutest. Then, he opened his mouth and bit into the bullet, and Tony’s heart stopped.

“No! Hey, no, no, you’ll swallow it and die!” he raced to the kitten. “Spit it out, don’t die on me now, Bucky would be devastated, come on!”

The kitten spat the bullet out, turned his head again and blinked innocently at Tony.

Tony breathed out a sigh of relief. Good, kitten not that. Accomplishment. Then, because he was already there and it would just be rude not to, he raised a hand and stroked Alpine.

Ooh, soft. He stroked him again, then raised his other hand to scratch at Alpine’s throat. Alpine turned his head, putting his ears near Tony’s hand, so Tony scratched those, too. Then Alpine started purring, and Tony was in heaven. His mind was focused on the kitty in the way he knew he only got when he was really tired, but he didn’t mind. This beautiful kitten deserved all the attention, didn’t he? Yes, he did. Yes, he did.

“You know, you’re really cute like this, doll” Bucky sounded behind him, and Tony jumped.

“Am not” he turned around, putting his hands behind him, just to make sure Bucky couldn’t see them. Maybe if he didn’t see them, he’d forget about them. Tony did, sometimes.

Alpine butted his head against Tony’s hands, so he started scratching him. What Bucky couldn’t see, he couldn’t bring up against Tony, right?

“You’re scratching him, aren’t you?” Bucky smiled at him fondly.

“No?” Alpine started purring. “Maybe. But only because he’s cute.”

“That he is” and, oh god, the fondness in Bucky’s voice as he walked towards them, his small smile, Tony could get lost in them. Probably did, because the next moment Bucky was standing in front of him, his face now worried.

“Hey, doll, you’re awfully spaced out. You okay?”

“Yeah, sure” Tony waived a hand. Then looked down at it, and Alpine was hanging from it. He cradled him to his chest. Maybe stroked him, but just a tiny bit.

“When have you slept last?” Bucky asked, and Tony startled. He’d forgotten Bucky was there. But it was good, because that meant Tony could lean into him. Carefully, of course, to avoid crushing Alpine. God, it was nice to rest his head on Bucky’s chest.

“I’m gonna close my eyes for a minute, okay?” he mumbled. “But just for a minute. Wake me up.”

\----------

Bucky gazed down at his boyfriend sleeping on his chest, still carefully cradling Alpine, and could feel his heart swell with love. He was sure he’d been loving Tony since a month into their relationship, but he’d held back, afraid to spook Tony. Well, no more of that, now.

He lifted Tony into his arms, Alpine between them, and moved out of the room. Someone would lock it up. In the corridor, the whole team waited for them, and he gave them a grateful smile. He knew he’d put them through the wringer this afternoon, but, well. Alpine.

“He’s out?” Steve nodded at Tony.

“Yeah” Bucky smiled down at him. “He doesn’t sleep well, away. I’m pretty sure he’s been running on way too little sleep the whole week.”

“You want me to take Alpine?” Clint asked, already reaching out.

“Nah, we’re fine” Bucky shook his head, but Clint pouted.

“Please? I miss my dog, man.”

“Maybe Tony’ll break after this” Sam suggested.

“Doesn’t help me now, man, please?” Did Clint learn those puppy-dog eyes from Lucky?

“Fine.” Bucky turned and Clint snapped Alpine away.

Tony stirred and grumbled, and they all held their breaths. But no, Tony didn’t wake up.

“Okay, I’ll put him to bed before he wakes up” Bucky said softly, and they all nodded.

Bucky moved towards the elevator, and JARVIS took him to the penthouse without having to ask.

He went straight into the bedroom and placed Tony on the bed. He didn’t dare change him, but took his shoes off, and then hesitated. It was only around five, but…

To hell with it. Even if he wouldn’t sleep, he could cuddle with his boyfriend.

\---------

Tony would own this. He would. He had a plan, and Pepper’d helped him make it, so it was good. No giant bunnies or food allergies this time.

He made dinner. Well, he ordered dinner, but he put it on the table, so it counted. (No omelets, either. Pepper had been quite specific about that.) He put out candles, too, and lit them when JARVIS told him Bucky had entered the building.

Tony was sitting at the grand piano, anxiously needling his pants. The stupid cat was perched on top, staring down at him with those judgmental eyes.

“Shut it, Alpine” he muttered. Ugh. He was only gonna tell Bucky he loved him, not ask to marry him.

“Sergeant Barnes will arrive in a minute” JARVIS announced, and Tony took a deep breath. Showtime.

He placed his hands on the keys, closing his eyes. He always played better from memory. The first notes of Brahm’s Hungarian Dance No. 5 sounded just as the elevator dinged. Tony could hear Bucky’s steps stop as he registered the piano, and then come closer and stop again at the door, but he focused on the music. The keys danced beneath his hands, the music flowing out into the room and beyond. He started swaying with the tempo and the movement of his hands, flying across the keyboard. Then he slowed, just for a bit, slow noted interspersed with quick strokes of his left hand. Then he flowed back into the theme, his hands now going on autopilot, as he opened his eyes and looked over at Bucky. He was watching with soft eyes and a soft smile and Tony couldn’t help but smile back. He knew he looked dopey but couldn’t care less.

Only when the last notes dispersed into the air did Bucky move. He came closer, until he stopped just beside the bench, and Tony turned sideways to meet him.

“Hey” he whispered.

“Hey, sweetheart” Bucky whispered back, and leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to Tony’s mouth. “What did I do to deserve this welcome?”

And Tony couldn’t help but smile at him, eyes full of the love he wasn’t ignoring anymore.

“I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> The song Tony plays is Hungarian Dance No.5 from Johannes Brahm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCDygl0pttM
> 
> Kudos and comments make me want to write <3


End file.
